The past few days, the Sun erupted with a series of flares, none of which were considered overly powerful. Despite that, the flares sent billions upon billions of charged particles, into space. Well, come yesterday evening, the first blast of energy from the Sun finally made it to Earth. Result: Northern Lights are being observed far South of their normal limit.
In fact, according to spaceweather.com, Northern Lights were reported as far South as Doylestown, Ohio. Want proof? Well, here's a picture!
When the highly-charged particles of energy hit our upper atmosphere, they interact with Earth's magnetic field, causing disruptions in electronic communications. In 1989, a solar storm was so strong that it knocked out power over a large part of Canada. Besides the electronic glitches, the highly charged particles from the Sun interacting with the atoms in our upper atmosphere can cause something else: aurora, more commonly known as the Northern and Southern lights, which are essentially a natural 'neon' light display..
For us living in the Northern hemisphere, auroras are common in high latitudes such as Canada, the Scandinavian countries, and higher. For those at mid latitudes, such as everyone living in the Continental United States, auroras don't find their way into our skies very often.
Last night was the exception. So how about tonight?
Well, the news is good and bad. For starters, the Moon is nearly New, which means that nature's night light won't interfere with aurora watching. The bad news is that, to begin with, the blasts from the Sun that created the aurora were not overly strong, which is bad news for a multi-night display at this Southerly latitude. Sure, the Northern Lights may not make it this far down tonight, but it never hurts to look.
Good luck!
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